Kathy Kuntz
Delivering Short and Long-Term Sustainability Results
From the onset, the team at Cool Choices has been obsessed with results. Perhaps it’s to be expected: we’re a nonprofit, with a mission of inspiring voluntary actions that reduce emissions associated with climate change. More, the scale of the challenge we faced—inspiring behaviors (which is always difficult, even at the personal level) to address climate change (an issue that can feel insurmountable)—was both hard and important, not leaving a lot of room for error.
Addressing Employee Suggestions: A Real World Challenge
“The suggestions from building occupants can get pretty overwhelming – how can I be responsive, as you recommend, when we can’t address everything immediately?”
Engaging Employees to Accelerate Sustainability Efforts
We say it a lot as an explanation of what we do; “we help companies accelerate their corporate sustainability efforts via employee engagement.”
But how exactly does employee engagement accelerate sustainability?
Optimizing Energy Efficiency: The Engineers Are On It
Last week I attended the World Energy Engineering Congress (WEEC), a gathering of engineers focused on energy and energy efficiency.
Speak Up! Share How You’re Hitting Sustainability Goals!
While the US government scales back its response to climate change, businesses are taking the lead in reducing resource use, cutting emissions and eliminating landfill waste. There are nearly constant headlines about the efforts of big companies—from Apple’s efforts to transition from newly mined minerals to recycling used components to Unilever’s overall leadership that helps it attract and retain talent—examples abound.
BECC Beckons
In a few weeks, several Cool Choices staff will attend the annual Behavior, Energy and Climate Change (BECC) conference. This will be my ninth time attending the annual BECC conference and I look forward to this event every year because for me, BECC is reinforcing, challenging and inspirational.
Sustainability from the Employee Perspective
Over the course of the sustainability programs we implement with our corporate partners we always solicit employee suggestions—ideas for reducing waste and increasing efficiency at these companies.
We get a lot of ideas; in a typical program, participants submit hundreds of suggestions associated with saving energy, water and fuel while also reducing landfill waste.
Recently we analyzed the ideas we received from all of our 2016 programs to look for patterns and lessons learned as a resource for sustainability leaders. The full results are available in our “Employee Perspectives on Sustainability” white paper.
It’s Time for a Sustainability – HR Coalition
Employee engagement is a hot topic in HR circles. Experts estimate that up to 70% of US workers are not engaged at work and, further, that this disengagement costs companies about $500 billion annually. Disengaged employees are more likely to provide poor customer service, they are more prone to accidents, more likely to take sick days and they are less productive. So it’s no wonder that human resource teams are concerned about measuring and increasing engagement. At the same time, some sustainability leaders inside companies are struggling too. Facing aggressive year-after-year goals, these folks are wondering where they will get the next round of savings. Sustainability leads need fresh ideas and, ultimately, all hands on deck to generate savings.
It’s time for some creative cross-functional collaboration. A coalition, if you will.
Conversations Around Sustainability: The “Yes, And” Approach
I spent Saturday at the Green Alliance Sustainability Fair in Waukesha County, Wisconsin. Cool Choices had an exhibit and we did a workshop; we were talking about the free county-wide Cool Choices program we are launching in the Waukesha County later this fall.
The fair occurred in a clearing at a state park, which meant we were talking about environmental sustainability just a few yards from hiking trails on a crisp and sunny Wisconsin day. Perhaps as a result, I did not encounter anyone at this event who opposed protecting Wisconsin’s amazing natural resources for future generations. Opinions did vary, though, on what needed to happen and how.
People and Behavior: The Problem Becomes the Solution
In September I’ll present at the World Energy Engineering Congress in Atlanta. I’ll present on Engaging Employees to Maximize Savings: A Cool Approach as part of a session titled How to Stop Misbehaving to Save Energy and Money. The session title suggests that the priority is to stop bad behavior; here at Cool Choices, though, we focus on identifying, amplifying and multiplying good behavior.
It’s really about the frame.
